Larry Scott’s experiment this year to shorten Pac 12 halftimes by five minutes has inspired me to cut some slack out of this season’s halftime report.

We’ll excise superfluous adjective and nouns and abbreviate the glossary of terms as follows:

Washington =UDub

Chris Petersen =Coach Pete

Washington State =Wazzu

Eastern Washington =EWU

USC =SC

Tee Martin =T Martin

Commissioner Larry Scott =Larry

Pac 12 Network =P12N

Rose Bowl = RB

Kirk Herbstreit =Herbie

Late Night Kickoffs =LNK

Non conference =NC

Alabama =Tide

Arizona =Zona

Arizona basketball =Team 1 (FBI report)

College Football Playoff =CFP

Kentucky Fried Chicken =KFC

At this time =ATT

Not too shabby =NTS

Cut to chase. The Pac 12’s first half report is in and it is solid. Larry’s League is much better positioned in the CFP race than it was last year at this time. It has three legitimate contenders in UDub, Wazzu and SC. Meaning: if any of those top-15 schools win out they will likely be playing a national semifinal game at the RB.

Those schools are a combined 17-1…NTS

Last year ATT only UDub was in the mix. SC started 1-3, remember, and Wazzu opened 0-2.

This is progress. Pac avoided embarrassing NC loss that can set your reputation back. Last year, remember, Wazzu opened with a home loss to EWU and SC was blown out by Tide.

This year’s worst NC defeat was what…UCLA at Memphis? The rest of this article is available to subscribers only – to become a subscriber click here.

About The Author

Dufresne, spent 35 years at the Los Angeles Times covering numerous sports. Over the last two decades he emerged as their national college football and basketball columnist. He and his alter-ego Rankman have been putting college teams in their place ever since.